Brexit news: How Greenland convinced Brussels 'EU is NOT a prison' and left with DEAL

GREENLAND spent years convincing Brussels that the EU is not a prison and in the end, the nordic country agreed a successful deal after intense negotiations, Lars Vesterbirk, the lawyer who negotiated the departure of Greenland from the EEC, claimed.

After the UK voted to Leave in a referendum in 2016, European Commission President Jean Claude-Juncker gave an interview to German TV ARD. The EU chief said: “It is not an amicable divorce, but it was also not an intimate love affair.” Two years later, Mr Juncker’s words proved to be true as the negotiations that followed between the bloc and London were far from amicable.

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The UK now finds itself in a political crisis after the blueprint negotiated by Theresa May was rejected for the second time in a humiliating defeat in the House of Commons last week.

MPs also voted to take no deal off the table under any circumstance and approved a motion setting out the option to have a short delay by agreeing to a Brexit deal by March 20 or a longer delay if no deal can be agreed in time.

However, according to the Times, the EU is poised to tell Mrs May that she must hold a second referendum in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.

As Brexit uncertainty intensifies following this week’s votes, a newly-resurfaced interview with Lars Vesterbirk, the lawyer who negotiated the departure of Greenland from the European Economic Community in 1982, suggests how Brexit negotiations were never going to be easy due to the EU's intransigence.

Greenland spent years convincing Brussels that the EU is not a prison (Image: University of Greenland / GETTY)

Greenland became the first and only country to leave the EEC – the precursor to the EU – after a referendum was held in 1982.

As part of the Danish Kingdom, Greenland had joined the bloc in 1973 but, not long after its entry, the country began a fight for its independence.

In a 2016 interview with the Slow Journalism Company, Mr Vesterbirk claimed the negotiations to leave the EEC were “intense” for Greenland and warned Britain that it should not expect to get "anything easily" from Brussels.

He said: “The atmosphere between us and the member states wasn’t good.

“We spent a lot of time convincing the EU that of course you can leave – the EU is not a prison.

“I think [the EU] will have the same attitude now as they had 30 years ago.

Jean-Claude Juncker claimed after the UK voted to leave that "it is not an amicable divorce" (Image: GETTY)

“That when you leave the family, you should not expect to get anything easily.”

Mr Vesterbirk revealed how his country managed to get a good deal off the bloc in the end.

He said: “We won because we were much, much better prepared than our counterparts.

“It’s very simple – the Eurocrats have many other things to take care of.

“They cannot spend all their time over the next five, six years just on Brexit.

Lars Vesterbirk, the lawyer who negotiated the departure of Greenland from the EEC in 1982 (Image: University of Greenland)

“We still have an EU that should be operating on behalf of the remaining 27 countries.”

The lawyer also noted that the relatively close result of the referendum in Greenland - 53 percent of the population voting for withdrawal - “had an enormous influence on the atmosphere.”

He said: “We were told again and again that the minority was just as big as the majority and we couldn’t do it.

“I guess you will hear that in Britain as well.

"It’s the drawback of referendums in a democracy.

"You have to take it seriously, you have to live with the fact that the majority is the majority.”